Language belongs to the other, someone says,
It doesn’t matter who; I haven’t read him.
The axiom is true nonetheless;
I’ve seen the proof spun out in daily practice:
For instance, people tend to riddle me
With questions, to draw me out, I guess, but it
Soon becomes an Echo-and-Narcissus
Situation in which I can say nothing of
My own, but only give the other back her speech.
So how am I supposed to talk to you,
Waiting there as silent as the lake
That gives the sky the sky, the boy the boy?
Only a fool doesn’t understand
He loved the river, too. I’d say the world
Is flush with fools.

Constance Merritt, “Ars Poetica”